


The daughter returned

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Character Turned Into Vampire, Childhood Memories, Family Issues, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Meet the Family, Military Backstory, Repressed Memories, Twilight Renaissance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: When Esme opened the door one fateful day, the last person she expected to find was Jasper's sister from the 1800's who'd been sent by Maria and just really wanted to meet the brother she hadn't seen since he joined the military.Jasper is just surprised to see her at all. Besides, she was human last he checked, and she should have died at least a century ago.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	The daughter returned

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know, but I've read that Jasper had a sister that people are calling Cynthia, which doesn't make any sense to me because that's Alice's sister's name? Meyer wouldn't give them both the same name, would she? (she probably would). I'm not in the Twilight fandom, so could someone in the fandom please tell me what all the real names are so I can fix them?
> 
> I'm really proud of the way this came together.

They were all scattered when she arrived.

Edward was just returning home after spending the day with Bella, Carlisle was at work, Jasper and Alice had gone for a walk through the woods that surrounded their home, so the only people home when she arrived at their doorstep was Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, the former two were upstairs, while Esme was in the kitchen, so naturally, she was the one who opened the door and welcomed the stranger into their home.

She was a vampire, obviously. Pale skin that shimmered slightly from the sun that streamed down from the parted clouds, with honey blonde hair and clear red eyes as though she had just fed, with a long, healed-over scar across her throat that looked as if her skin had been ripped open in her past life. Around her neck, just below her ear, were the familiar circle of scars that all vampires gained at some point.

Esme had invited her in, and she introduced herself as Nora. She was a stranger, but for some reason, Esme was sure they had met before. She looked familiar, anyway. Esme didn’t push.

She was polite and civil and she perched herself delicately on the edge of the couch when Esme invited her to sit. She introduced herself to Rosalie and Emmett when they finally made their way downstairs. “Oh,” she said eventually. “Silly me, I forgot to give you her note.”

“What note?” Esme had frowned as Nora reached a gloved hand into the pocket of her long tan coat and handed Esme a carefully bound letter sealed with wax. “From who?”

“From the woman who sent me here,” Nora replied politely, and went back to looking over the room, her hands folded in her lap.

_She’s been hunting for him_ , the note read in the looping, sprawling handwriting of a woman, _I found her a long time ago and I’ve been hiding her until the time was right. Now, my Little Mouse wants to know why she was abandoned and unloved in her new life. It’s about time she learned the truth about her idol- Maria._

Esme’s mouth had run dry at the sight of Maria’s name and knew without a doubt that this wasn’t a prank, and that this woman before her had been sent to their home by Maria for some reason or another. That fact unsettled Esme, but she tried to hide it behind a smile.

At some point, Emmett bounded down the staircase, his phone clutched in his hand, Rosalie hanging off his arm. “Edward just called,” he explained and tried not to look at Nora. “Alice warned him about our visitor, so he and Carlisle are on their way home. Alice and Jasper won’t be too far behind.”

They left once Esme thanked them and weren’t seen again for some time. At the mention of Jasper, Nora stiffened, only slightly, but Esme caught it. “Is everything alright, dear?” she asked kindly.

“Yes,” Nora smoothed her features over and plastered a smile on her face. “Quite.”

There was very little talk as they waited for someone, anyone, to enter the home, and yet Esme couldn’t help staring at the girl. She wasn’t as pretty as Rosalie- but then again, very few were- but she had a pleasant face, with long braided hair. Her red dress was a beautiful contrast against her pale skin. She looked so familiar that it took everything in Esme’s power not to ask.

Eventually, Edward arrived in a whirlwind, eyes darting for any sign of trouble but relaxing when he saw nothing but his mother chatting sociably with a stranger in the family’s fancy sitting room and introduced himself to her. Carlisle appeared not long later, hanging his long work coat up at the door and following his son into the other room and joining Esme on the couch opposite the new woman. Rosalie and Emmett came down again, and this time, they stayed there, watching and observing from the opposite wall.

Then Alice walked through the front door with Jasper in tow, and it seemed like the whole mood in the room shifted.

Nora stood and folded her hands together as Jasper took stock of her. Her scar was visible, none more so than Jasper's, but unlike every other vampire who had ever laid eyes on his numerous gruesome scars, she didn’t flinch. Now they were standing face to face, Esme realized why she looked so familiar- she and Jasper both had long, honey blonde hair, lanky frames, sharp features and the air of suffering in the way they held themselves. They were almost identical, except for the urgent fact that Jasper’s eyes were gold, and Nora’s eyes were a vicious red.

“Hello,” she addressed him first, ignoring everyone else in the room. “Do you remember me, sir? Do you recognise me?”

Jasper frowned, looking her up and down with a new, critical eye. It was suddenly obvious that she had made herself a guest in their home to see Jasper, so everyone else just stood back and let the exchange play out. “No ma’am, I can’t say that I do. I apologise.”

“That’s alright,” she replied pleasantly. “She warned me you wouldn’t, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

Esme cleared her throat. “She uh... she came with this,” she extended her arm, where Nora’s letter was held between two fingers. “It’s from Maria.”

Without looking away from the strange newcomer, Jasper took the note from Esme, unfolded it and quickly skimmed the message before scrunting it up into an angry ball and dropping it to the floor. “I do beg your pardon,” Jasper addressed Nora. “But is there any particular reason why you’ve visited us this afternoon?”

Edward, who had been reading her mind since the moment he walked in, realized before anyone else did. She’s been very careful about her thoughts when Edward arrived, made sure not to put anything that might give her away in her head, but now none of that mattered, and Edward was almost knocked off his feet by the sudden onslaught of new, shocking information. “Oh no, _Jasper_...” was all he could manage before it was too late.

“My name is Nora,” Nora said, eagerly, “Nora Whitlock.”

Jasper took a step back like he’d been shot, but Nora made up the distance by taking a step forward. They knew that if Jasper had need of air, he would be on the floor, gasping. Edward’s eyes were wide as he watched Nora. Alice had a hand on Jasper’s arm. “I beg your pardon-”

“I’m the youngest in my family,” she continued as if Jasper hadn’t spoken. “My ma was named Nancy, and my pa was Ray, and we lived with my aunt and uncle on the farm, and the maid and her three children who helped us with the handiwork and looking after the animals. My ma gave birth to a set of still-born twins, and then my brother Jasper, who was 17 when he smoothed talked his way into the army.”

Alice gripped Jasper like a lifeline, “You- you can’t be,” Jasper spluttered. “My little sister was born in the 1800s, she’d be long dead by now.”

But Nora only shook her head. “Not if she was turned into a vampire when she was fifteen.”

And yes- now that Esme knew what she was looking for, Nora did look like a fifteen-year-old in clothing too old for her, like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s things. She hadn’t noticed before because all vampires tended to look youthful, but there were aspects of real youth in Nora’s face.

In the silence, Nora dug into another pocket of her coat, the opposite one to where she had kept Maria’s message, and removed a large clump of handwritten letters, bound together with twine, and very obviously loved by the way she handled them with care and handed them to Jasper. He took them, slowly, and sifted through the old papers. “He was a smooth talker, my Jasper,” Nora continued, somewhat dreamlike. “He could charm the bark off a tree. You’d sometimes hear noises behind the church or in the darkness of the barn and a girl would come stumbling out, trying to rearrange her dress. He talked his way into the army by 17 and at 19 he was promoted to Major, and my pa was so proud. All he would talk about was how proud he was, how comforted he felt to know that our country was in safe hands.”

She paused to let Jasper read one of the notes. Some were signed with ‘ _from your dear old pa’_ or _‘love from your ma,’_ or ‘ _come home soon’_ , or ‘ _kisses, your favourite little sister_ ,’ but there was twice as many signed at the bottom with _‘take care, love Jasper.’_

“They brought those with them when they came to tell us what happened,” Nora explained when Jasper looked up at her with searching eyes. “Missing in action, presumed dead. They don’t know what got him. They just brushed it off as him stepping on a landmine, or running away, or stumbling into enemy territory and never making it out. My ma let out this _ungodly_ scream when they gave her the letters- I still hear it. This is every letter we ever wrote to him and every reply he ever sent. They found them, wrapped up in cloth and hidden in his bunk. He took them with him wherever he went, and now I bring them with me.”

Emmett and Rosalie had been listening intently from the back wall, and now it was their turn to pipe up. “How do you know that _our_ Jasper is _your_ Jasper?” Emmett asked. “This could all be just one big coincidence.”

Nora turned back to Jasper, who was clutching at the letters with a white-knuckle grip. “Maria told me you’d be here. She told me where to find you. But she also told me that I’d be disappointed with what I found, so maybe there is some merit to this. Tell me- what was your Nora like? What do you remember of your Nora?”

Jasper licked at his lips and took a deep breath, and it looked like Alice was the only thing holding him up. “She... she was shit at braiding her hair,” Jasper said. “And I always braided it for her on the staircase, and I would always make sure that she had ribbons...”

He trailed off as Nora reached behind her and pulled her hair over her shoulder, where her braid was tied off at the end by a bright red ribbon. “Ribbons that matched her dress?”

Eyes still on the ribbon, Jasper continued, “I liked to play pranks, because everyone was so serious, and I would put snakes in my sister’s boots and watch her scream, and then laugh as she tried to chase me, but she could never catch up with me.”

“Because I was always too slow,” Nora said simply. “And then you would hide in the barn, and when I ran past you would grab me and tickle me and I would scream and pull us both into the hay bales until ma found us and told us off for getting so dirty before dinner.”

Now Jasper had nothing to say, too shell-shocked to speak, he just stared at the young woman who was undoubtedly his sister and who he thought had died back in the 1800s, but undeterred, Nora continued. “He would pick me up and put me on his shoulders and laugh when I bumped my head on low beams,” she said. “And he would tuck me into bed when ma and pa were too busy arguing downstairs, and he would stay with me when I asked him too. He wore cowboy boots and wide-brimmed hats and always came home with flowers for ma whenever he went into town. When boys would tease me, he would scare them away, and sometimes chase them around with a rake or a stick. He threw a beehive at a boy, once, and even though his hand was bound in lots of bandages for a week, he always said it was worth it because that boy called me ugly and now his face was puffy with bee-stings. He taught me how to ride a horse and a bicycle, and he brought me both with his allowance, even though ma and pa yelled at him for adding another horse they didn’t need to the farm. I named her-”

“Maude,” Jasper finished quietly, “You named her Maude, and I laughed at you because one of the girls who had a crush on me was named Maude and I used to joke that she had a face like a horse.”

The room was silent. Nora and Jasper looked at each other very intently, Nora a little smugly, and Jasper like he’d just seen a ghost. Alice was looking up at Jasper with wide, watery eyes, “Jasper,” she said quietly. “I didn’t... I knew someone would be here, but I didn’t know who it would be. I’m sorry.”

“Edward,” Rosalie said, “Is it true? Is she...?”

Edward couldn’t tell if people were lying or not, or if their intentions were true, but he could look at Nora and read all the thoughts she currently had on her head, and he was currently watching all the childhood memories she had with Jasper run through her head like he was watching a silent movie. “Yeah,” he said as he watched a younger, happier Jasper lifting a giggling Nora up to reach a cookie jar on the highest shelf. “She’s telling the truth. She’s Nora Whitlock.”

“How did this happen?” Jasper asked, aghast. “Who turned you?”

He took a hesitant step towards his sister, and surprisingly, she took a step backwards and away from him, and her open, delighted face closed off. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember?” Jasper frowned. “Remember what?”

Nora stood up straighter and moved her hair so it fell down her back, and exposed her neck again, where the were scars and bite marks were on display. “You remember our maid, Sadie, and her three children, Tom, Oliver and Lydia?” Jasper nodded. “I went downstairs to read in the kitchen because all I could hear was ma crying to Aunt Irene in the bedroom beside mine, and father drinking with Uncle Chester. It was your birthday in a few days, see, and nobody wanted to celebrate, they only wanted to mourn. So I went downstairs, and Sadie let me read while she cleaned up, and she went to get me a slice of the chocolate cake she just made to celebrate your birthday because she knew that nobody else would even look at it, and I heard her scream, and then I heard nothing at all. She never came back inside. I crept outside, to see what was wrong, and I found her dead at my feet, covered in her own blood, wide eyes blind as the life left her, her head nearly torn from her neck. Then I saw them there, standing over her, and I hid back in the shadows before they could see me.”

There was a pause. “Who was it?” Esme asked. “Was the vampire who killed her the same one who turned you?”

“No,” Nora shook her head as she fixed Jasper with a deep stare “No, Maria turned me. Jasper killed Sadie.”

Jasper blinked hard and spluttered. “I would never-!”

But Nora only continued. “You were leaning over her, and you were covered in her blood. You were licking it off of your hands. Your eyes were bright red, but you looked like you were going to cry. Like you were in pain or something. But Maria chastised you for being sloppy and made a comment about silencing the rest of the house. She kissed you deeply, and you told her you’d take care of it. I don’t know what happened. You might have killed everyone in the house, even ma and pa, but I have no idea. Because I wasn’t quite enough, and once you were gone, she found me. ‘Little mouse,’ she called me, ‘wrong place wrong time’. She told me that she shouldn’t have let you have your fun and that she should have given you the children, and then I saw the broken bodies of Tom, Oliver and Lydia kicked behind the barrels. She killed me, and then she turned me, and for years, she’s called me her Little Mouse. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

“I have,” Jasper said. “She called you her pet and said she kept you around because you were too dangerous to be allowed to roam about. What did she mean?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” Nora shook her head. “There’s nothing special about me other than the usual. She just meant that if she let me go, I’d probably tell you what she made you do, and destroy your alliance to her.”

Jasper was still, too still. Alice held him tight. He looked lost, and Alice hated it.

“Well,” Carlisle said, speaking for the first time and holding out his hand to Nora “Let me be the first to welcome you into our family, Nora. It’s very nice to meet you.”

But Nora didn’t take his hand. She took a step back and shook her head. “Oh- no, I couldn’t. You have a lovely home here and a lovely family, and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Besides, I don’t think my diet would be... well. It wouldn’t work with your lifestyle. But I thank you for the offer.”

“So you’re just going to come here, tell me that you’re alive, and leave?” Jasper asked, distraught. “You can’t just do that!”

“You did,” Nora said simply.

“Nora, I had no choice, you know that-”

“It was very nice to meet you, everyone. Esme, thank you for the company,” Nora interrupted. “And Jasper- I’m glad you’re happy.” And then in a rush of air and the sound of rushing water, Nora was gone, rushing past Jasper and Alice at the door and outside to the nearly setting sun.

Jasper nearly collapsed. “Nora! Nora, _wait_!” he called as he rushed out after her, trying to follow her footsteps, but after a long while of searching, it became increasingly obvious that she was long gone, and he returned to the house.

They were all waiting for him when he finally entered the household and closed the door behind him. They didn’t say anything as he put his back against the wall and sunk down to the floor and put his head in his hands. Alice crept over and held him, but other than that, nobody moved. They just waited.

“Jasper,” Carlisle said eventually when the shaking stopped, his voice soothing. “This must be hard on you. I don’t blame you for wanting to leave for a few days.” Jasper didn’t answer, and he sighed, understanding. “Do you want some time?”

“No,” Jasper said, his voice muffled by his hands. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Nobody believed him, but nobody wanted to argue with him, either. “Were you two close?” Edward asked when the silence became stifling. “It seemed like it. She had a lot of happy memories of the two of you.”

“She’s the only reason I talked my way into the military,” Jasper said. “Not to make pa proud, not to see the look on ma’s face, but because Nora had told me that she was afraid that we were going to lose the war and they were all going to die. I went to keep her safe the only way I knew how.”

“Why the hell did she just leave like that?” Emmett asked. “She just bolted. What did she even come here for? To rub it in your face?”

“I don’t know, Emmett,” Jasper muttered. “And I doubt I’ll ever find out.”

Finally, it was too much for Esme, who let out a soft sob before collapsing on the floor beside Jasper and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “Oh darling,” she muttered into his scalp as she gently ran her fingers through his hair. “I’m so sorry this happened. It’s terrible. If I had known who she was, I wouldn’t have let her in the house.”

Rosalie finished braiding her hair before she spoke. “Why wouldn’t she stay? I think it had more to do than her diet. You changed, and you had a harder time than she did. I think she’s keeping something from us.”

“Probably Maria,” Jasper said as Alice rested her chin on his shoulder. “She might have given her an ultimatum- she can come and see me, but she has to come back. That sounds like Maria.”

“You’ll see her again,” Emmett said easily. “You gotta. She’s your sister- your real sister!- how could she not come back?”

“I’d like to see her again, but that’s really up to her,” Jasper sent a sidelong look at Alice, who wasn’t looking at him. “I don’t even know where to find her or even where to look, so that’s her decision to make.”

“She’ll come back,” Edward said like he was so sure. “She has to.”

But Jasper didn’t seem convinced. In fact, he looked even more disheartened. He actually sort of looked like he was about to throw up. Carlisle wished that they were the kind of family that were touchy-feely and knew how to love each the like normal people. “Take some time, Jazz,” he said gently, and Jasper barely raised his head to look at him. “Think it over, figure out what it all means, and when you think you’ve made sense of it all, come back, and we’ll all figure it out together. Like a family.”

Slowly, Jasper rose and pushed his hair out of his face. He extended his hand to Alice, who took it, and he lifted her up from the ground. Together they trudged up the stairs and then the door to their bedroom closed with an almighty _thump!_

It was, unsurprisingly, Emmett who finally broke the silence. “He’s going to be alright, yeah?”

“He will be, but he’ll need our help,” Carlisle said, watching the stairs where Jasper disappeared. “And we will help him. All of us. Right?”

“Of course we will. You don’t even need to ask.” Edward said, and that was the end of that.


End file.
